What Every Medical CPD Office Should Know about Their CE Programs

Medical professionals need to further their clinical education to help with their clinical practice and develop the ability to respond rapidly to events as they occur. Research shows that 41% of employees without training opportunities are more likely to leave their jobs within the first 12 months. Furthermore, 87% of millennials state that professional development is a vital factor in a job.

To ensure that medical staff members are learning to the best of their ability, CPD offices should be well-informed about several aspects of their programs in order to enhance and improve the engagement of their candidates. By doing so, they can provide better programs to medical learners, helping them utilize skills and knowledge for the clinical workplace.

As a medical CPD office, there are a few things that you should know about the CE programs that your medical staff is attending.

The Key Benefits of CPD Programs

Medical CPD/CE programs maintain and improve the quality of care that patients and the public receive. Standards and processes within the teams are also improved by implementing CE programs across the teams in which they work.

CPD keeps medical health professionals and support personnel up to date and competent in the work they do. CE programs can also affirm areas that the medical staff has strengths in and highlight areas that need improvement, presenting an opportunity to gain knowledge in specific niches, such as those involving practice management, leadership, education, administration, and ethical, social, and personal skills.

The CE programs can help clinical personnel build the confidence to stand out from their peers, providing better opportunities for growth and promotions.

For employers, medical CPD offices help professionals’ efficiency in the workplace. It also improves employee competency. For staff who are hoping to become promoted or who want to specialize in another area, demonstrating their learning and dedication to CPD can make a significant difference. As a result, CPD contributes to achieving higher salaries.

Another primary benefit is ensuring that standards across the hospital facility are high and consistent. CPD promotes greater work engagement from staff and general commitment to job roles. Medical CPD contributes to staff potential, improves overall morale, and is comprehensive in scope.

Delivering the Right Content

Providing medical learners with the best CE content in a suitable format is a challenge that many CPD offices face. The internet has paved the way for shaping a future for remote learning with a click of a button. Learning through programs online, or “eLearning,” has been proven effective in the medical field, increasing retention rates by 25-60%, as opposed to 8-10% retention rates for traditional learning. According to Chief Learning Officer magazine, 58% of organizations prefer on-demand learning for training, compared to 12% who prefer in-person, instructor-led training.

By providing relevant content, learners can perform self-study activities offline and online to earn credits. The information should be educational in a specific medical field and geared toward helping learners increase their skills, knowledge, and abilities as medical professionals.

Tracking Attendance

When learners are engaged in a CE program, it’s crucial to track their attendance efficiently. CPD offices can set a minimum number of hours that learners have to meet in order to qualify for the CE program.

Tracking attendance can be difficult, especially on mobile devices and when offline learning is involved. Many platforms, however, allow you to easily manage attending tracking for medical CE programs online and offline.

A Learning Management System (LMS) that’s tailored to your medical program can create registrations and course information pages, enforce attendance as part of the program completion, and allow instructors to give a pass or fail mark.

With the rapid advancements in technology, many people prefer to use their smartphones for flexibility and portability, making recording attendance via smartphone more essential than ever.

How Learners Get Certified

Crediting learners can be a difficult task when there are so many factors involved. Your learners not only need to be tracked for overall attendance but also for the number of credits they earn per course and for the entire curriculum.

The EthosCE LMS provides medical CPD offices with the ability to support multiple credit types. Create your own credit types, use credit hours, or use CEUs, CNE, CPE, CLE, CFP, CEH, PDH, or any other specialty credits. Set the number of credits that learners can receive per course or curriculum completion. You can also allow credits to be earned based on course attendance and tracked via offline and online activities.

Certification can rack up expenses when it comes to admin costs and supporting learners. Self-serve certificates provide a solution to reduce costs by allowing you to easily fill out the learner’s details, embed signatures, seals, and images, and create the certificate by using an HTML or rich text editor. Self-serve certificates can also be re-printed at any time by learners to give them full access to their certification, helping reduce admin costs.

Implement the Right LMS

Every medical CPD office should know how their CE programs are being implemented for learners to make the most significant impact. Certain aspects of CE programs, such as how learners access the right content, how they are credited, and how they can acquire their certifications, can increase engagement. By implementing tailored programs that put the medical professional at the center, organizations can benefit from increasing the learner’s and employer’s satisfaction, which helps boost productivity and increase return of investment.

EthosCE believes CME technology solutions should be designed to improve healthcare professionals’ user experience, comply with ACCME guidelines, reduce administrative costs, and demonstrate measurable outcomes.

To learn how EthosCE can help your CPD medical office enhance your CE program, request a free 1-on-1 demo with one of our specialists today!